


The Mistletoe Bluff

by dansunedisco



Series: 12 Days of Sanditon [3]
Category: Sanditon (TV 2019), Sanditon - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Relationships, Christmas Party, F/M, First Kiss, Games, Holidays, Jealousy, Mistletoe, Modern Era, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21940465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansunedisco/pseuds/dansunedisco
Summary: After being made to kiss under the mistletoe, Sidney and Charlotte navigate the rest of the Sanditon Christmas eve party with several whacky hijinks along the way.Written for the 12 Days of Sanditon challenge with several prompts combined.
Relationships: Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Series: 12 Days of Sanditon [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1575874
Comments: 5
Kudos: 50





	The Mistletoe Bluff

**Author's Note:**

> this is a continuation of my already [posted ficlet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21808996/chapters/52328374)
> 
> more to come as i am about to go to my very own christmas eve party ;)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 8: Mistletoe & Day 9: Games

“You can’t be serious,” said Sidney.

“It’s _tradition_ , Sidney,” Tom insisted.

Arthur raised his glass of mulled wine aloft. “To tradition!”

The Parkers and all gave a hearty cheer. Even Mary, who normally dissuaded the family from such fanciful notions, joined in, and so Sidney had no choice but to turn to Charlotte.

A sprig of mistletoe hung above the doorway. It just so happened that both Charlotte and he had walked through the double-doors of Trafalgar House at the same time, and lingered a moment too long to remove their winter garments. Tom had come upon them as they stood back-to-back under the aforementioned sprig and, ever the showman, he’d rallied the rest of the family from the adjacent room to cast peer pressure upon the newly arrived victims. Despite their valiant protests, it seemed they would be held accountable.

“You can say no,” Sidney told her quietly.

“It _is_ tradition,” she replied. “So maybe we should.”

Her answer shocked him. If Sidney were being honest -- and he was, normally, to a fault -- he’d wanted to kiss Charlotte for ages now. It had been a slow, creeping realisation on his part; a feeling that, when discovered, he’d wrapped it up and shoved it into a proverbial box which he’d then trundled off into a deep, recessed corner of his heart. As such, the matter of returned feelings never crossed his mind. Maybe, he thought, looking into Charlotte’s soft eyes, it should have.

Her face was upturned, her expression unreadable. He couldn’t tell if the flush along her cheeks was from the outside cold or embarrassment. What he could acknowledge, however, was how absolutely, stunningly beautiful she was.

Coming to the kiss was easy. Stubborn as he was, he was determined not to read into a single thing as she pressed up to him; how her eyes fluttered closed, how well they fit together, or that her soft lips parted into a breathless gasp against his. His world spun as much as it fell away, and it took a moment to register their audience’s delight as they drifted slowly apart.

“That’s how it’s done!” Tom declared.

“Hear, hear!” crowed Arthur.

“I _told_ you he liked her--” came Georgiana’s recount.

He was sure he looked as stunned as Charlotte did, but there was no time to consider the monumental change that had occurred: the whirlwind that was Tom Park descended upon them a moment later, and they were brought into the fold of another Sanditon holiday party.

Sitting through the Christmas eve meal was torture.

Not only because Tom had insisted on traditional feast fare ( _no one_ in their right mind wanted brown soup followed on by calf’s head but here they were) but because Sidney had to sit through it next to Charlotte. 

Their kiss from earlier hung heavily on his mind, and he wanted to talk to her about it -- if only for clarity’s sake. But every moment available had been snatched away from him: Tom demanding Sidney demonstrate sabrage for the dinner guests; Arthur’s last-minute present dilemma; _Diana’s_ last-minute present dilemma; Lady Denham’s increasingly personal demands on Sidney’s intentions to marry; asking Georgiana to put her phone down and the argument between them that followed; redirecting Crowe from the fancier bottle of Glenmorangie; and finally, ushering everyone into the dining room.

“How many courses did Tom order?” asked Charlotte.

“Eleven, but he never did tell me if the soups and desserts were included.”

Her eyes widened in an expression he believed to be utter despair. “I’m not sure I can handle the rest.”

“Neither can I.” He turned his head and leaned in to whisper, “It’s all been god awfully disgusting, hasn’t it?”

He saw the conflict war inside of her: though most of her meal remained untouched on her plate, agreeing with him went against her very nature, as was being outright _mean_ to anyone (but him it seemed).

“That’s very unkind of you to say,” she said, and he nearly laughed at how accurate he was becoming when it came to Charlotte Heywood. “Someone labored all day to make this for us.”

“I wish they hadn’t.”

“Well, I think it’s all very good.” She took a heaping bite of sweetbread with peas as if to prove her point. She chewed determinedly, but the green at her gills was obvious, as was the amount of water it took to wash it all down. She all but waved her fork in his face. “See? There. Delicious.”

“Ah, yes, I do. I’m sure you’d loved to clear your plate of it, hm?”

“ _Lo_ _ve_ to, but there’s seven more courses. How could I possibly give all my stomach to just one thing?”

Both of them couldn’t die on the mountain of food Tom had procured, and so he conceded. “Quite right, Heywood.”

James Stringer, who sat across from Charlotte, jumped into the conversation. “My gran, God rest her soul, made sweetbread every Christmas, too. We would all pretend to love it with every fiber of our being. Luckily granddad’s old hunting dog wasn’t averse, so all was well in the end.”

“Oh my!” Charlotte laughed.

A flare of jealousy sparked in Sidney’s gut. Stringer’s affection for Charlotte was glaringly evident. He hung onto every word she said with a dopey smile, and every time she laughed at something he said it stretched all the wider. Though Sidney found it very hard to find fault with Stringer (who dealt with Tom’s increasingly outlandish ideas for the Sanditon rebuild with aplomb and was considered by most everyone to be an upstanding member of society), he constantly had to fight the urge to _hate him._ He was a good-looking man and a respectable architect. A catch, surely, but the fact of the matter was that Sidney didn’t want Charlotte to think him so.

The rest of the meal slogged on, though the spirits of all in attendance were very high. Lady Denham heaped constant praise on Esther’s choice in husband, which Babbington bore handsomely, and although Sidney had initially protested in seating Georgiana between both Arthur _and_ Crowe, her cellphone was facedown on the table most of the night and she was _smiling_.

They were dismissed after the blancmange and corralled into the drawing-room. No one was allowed to escape. The gift exchange event wouldn’t begin until 2000, according to the delicately calligraphed invitations Tom had insisted on sending, but Sidney knew Tom had schemes on playing traditional parlour games. Yet again, his chance to talk to Charlotte alone was waylaid.

Sidney stood next to Crowe and Arthur by the hearth; Lady Denham remained seated at the head chair; then came Diana, Georgiana, Charlotte and Mary, the Lord and Lady Babbington, and James Stringer closed the half-circle. Tom remained in front to start the show.

“Ladies and gentlemen, one and all, thank you again for attending Sanditon’s finest Christmas eve ball--”

Sidney rolled his eyes.

“--As you’ve surely surmised, I have _devised_ a traditional night of revelry and fun!”

Everyone groaned.

“Now, now! We will be playing Blindman’s Bluff,” he said over their dissent and explained the rules: one lucky victim would be made to wear a blindfold and traverse the room filled with guests. The pursued would be able to disguise themselves in whichever way they chose. If the blindfolded came upon someone, they would be made to guess who was in their grasp. “And if they cannot, or guess incorrectly, they earn themselves a forfeit!”

“And what, pray, is the forfeit for this _lovely_ game?” Esther asked. Though her relationship to Babbington had indeed mellowed her spitting venom, it came forth with vigor every now and again.

Tom’s grin froze in place, but Lady Denham came to the rescue, “Tradition suits a kiss.”

With her niece already married and to a well-suited match, Sidney couldn’t fathom what devious designs Lady D had up her ruffled sleeves. He looked across the room to find Charlotte already looking his way.

Esther’s smile tightened. “The majority are married, Aunt. Surely we won’t be made to break our vows for forfeit?”

“Silly girl, there are other places to land a kiss just as there are other places to land a punch,” she groused.

“Right,” Mary stepped in. “If everyone is amenable to it, you can choose to kiss the other party’s knuckles, or a cheek, or--”

“The kisser itself!’ Babbington finished, who turned to demonstrate on his wife. Despite Esther’s determined irritation, it was plain for all to see that she melted in her husband’s arms and came free from it in a smiling mood.

“Well said!” Tom said. “All is settled. Let us choose who is to go first with straws. The shortest drawn will go.”

Tom showed them all the straws, then encircled his fist around the bunch. They all poked out from his grip evenly. One by one, the guests plucked them free: Sidney first, then Crowe, Lady Denham, and on to Arthur, Diana, Georgiana, Charlotte and Mary, Esther and Babbington. None of them came away with the short draw, and Sidney nearly snapped his straw in half in anticipation.

“Two left,” Tom said, and held his hand out to Stringer.

It did not pass Sidney’s notice that Stringer looked to Charlotte before making his decision. He held his hand above Tom’s, hovering above it like he could divine which of the two held his fate. Then, with a deep breath, he drew the straw half the length of the rest. He laughed and waved the stick in the air, “With me luck.”

Sidney almost demanded Tom double-check the blindfold, but he held his tongue. Instead, he placed himself behind a folded card table and waited for Stringer to re-enter the room. Most of the participants had scattered -- Lady Denham did not -- and Sidney was pleased to see Charlotte firmly behind an impossible-to-reach couch. He wanted to know: did she mean to escape Stringer’s clutches?

“The game begins!” Tom announced as Stringer took his first tentative steps into the drawing-room.

He kept his arms out front and made his way with small, exploratory steps. A few tittering laughs escaped when Stringer bumped into an end table, but eventually his searching brought him to Diana. A flare of nervous laughter bubbled forth from her lips, and he guessed easily; it was apparent to Sidney that Stringer was sorely disappointed by his ‘prize’.

On and on the game went, and despite its initial frosty reception by all, it was quite fun: when Babbington became the next blindman, he sniffed Esther out like a tried-and-true truffle pig. He declared her to be Mary and earned himself a forfeit, which he look great relish in paying. Crowe found Tom and also had to pay the forfeit, having guessed Sidney, although he paid it quite a bit more reluctantly than his friend did previously. Georgiana found Arthur with no forfeit, and so on. Even Lady D has her turn. The only two who did not play blindfolded was Charlotte and Sidney.

He almost wanted to escape from behind his table to get in on the fun. He was sure he’d be able to navigate the room well enough to come upon his desired target. But before he could, the clock chimed on the hour of eight, and the game was done.


End file.
